


Making Mistakes

by deathishauntedbyhumans



Category: Milo Murphy's Law, Phineas and Ferb
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Drabble, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post Abducting Murphy’s Law, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000, less comfort more hurt, this isn’t slash if you squint but it also is if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 09:56:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18280793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathishauntedbyhumans/pseuds/deathishauntedbyhumans
Summary: Because SOMEBODY had to write Dakota and Doofhanging outafter the events ofAbducting.





	Making Mistakes

“So that _platypus_ was your best friend.” There’s no judgement in Dakota’s voice when he says it, but he definitely sounds like he doesn’t exactly understand what he’s saying. If he had more energy to spare, Heinz might have bristled at the way it’s not quite a question, but also not quite a statement. As it is, he’s so damn _tired_ that all he can do is give a jerky sort-of nod and shrug half-heartedly.

Heinz had certainly _thought_ Perry the Platypus had been his best friend, at any rate. He still feels sour, like he’s lying without knowing the truth.

“Huh.” Again, Dakota doesn’t sound like he’s passing judgement. Heinz guesses it’s because _he’s_ tired, too, or maybe it’s because he’s from the future. Maybe in the future, people and animals can be best friends without anyone looking at them funny. That sounds like a nice future.

It’s too bad Heinz won’t have a future like that to share with someone like—

Hmph. No. He’s not even going to think about it, because that means he’s thinking about _him,_ and _he_ doesn’t deserve to be thought about right now.

“‘m sorry,” Dakota says, head lolling on the couch to look over at Heinz. “I shouldn’t’ve brought it up.”

Heinz looks down, away from Dakota, because he’s not used to people looking at him with genuine care, or _apologising_ to him so honestly. Dakota is so _honest._ He’s so… ridiculously _genuine._

Heinz thinks about that a whole lot more than he should, and he doesn’t know how to stop _that_ at all.

“I brought it up,” Heinz says, trying to brush the apology away. He shuffles the papers he’s got spread over the desk, sifting through blueprints of -inators that he’d thought might be able to help with Dakota’s whole missing-partner-alien-problem situation. The photograph of himself and Perry, the one that he’d snorted derisively at to try and make himself feel better about the way his stomach dropped upon catching sight of the image, disappears underneath a scribbled blueprint for a Cheese-Grater-Inator. “Don’t worry about it.”

Dakota hums, flopping and wiggling on the couch until he’s lying flat out on it with his head propped up on one of the armrests.

“You miss him,” he observes softly, and Heinz freezes, because _that’s_ not a question, either.

Dakota doesn’t seem fazed. “Yeah. I know. I miss _Ca_ vendish, too.” His voice wobbles a little on his partner’s name, and Heinz wants to open his mouth and try to say something, _anything,_ that might be constituted as comforting, but the lump in his throat is suddenly too thick to speak through.

Heinz isn’t used to being the quiet one. No matter where he’s been in life or who he’s been with, he’s always been the loud, obnoxious, talkative one. As a kid, he was loud until his parents beat the loud out of him at home, and even then, he’d only taken his obnoxious, talkative ways to school with him. His ocelot family had never actually spoken aloud in a way he could understand (obviously), which was fine, because Heinz had a perfectly fine habit of filling the silence in their cave. And then he’d grown up and met Perry the Platypus, and Perry the Platypus didn’t talk either but he _listened._ That had been enough. That had been more than enough.

A shard of pain, white-hot and vulnerable, laces through Heinz’s chest. Perry the Platypus _used_ to listen. Back before all Heinz had been was a _job_.

(Had he ever been more than a job? They’d started out as nemeses, nemeses by assignment, but somewhere along the road Heinz had been _sure_ that they’d moved past that. There was more than the simple necessity of payment that had Perry coming back to foil his schemes every day. He’d thought.)

(He’d hoped.)

“Maybe we should call it a night.” Maybe Dakota can see the tears behind his eyes, the emotion that Heinz refuses to let out in the presence of anyone but—

In the presence of _anyone else._

Or maybe Dakota is just tired. It doesn’t matter. Heinz doesn’t know how to make himself ask if Dakota is okay, because then he might start caring about Dakota, and he knows just how badly _that_ mistake always ends.

Dakota swings his legs over the front of the couch again and stands. Heinz doesn’t watch him while he stretches. He doesn’t watch out of the corner of his eye as Dakota ambles over to him, and he certainly doesn’t lean into Dakota’s hand when it settles casually against his shoulder.

“You gonna head home, Dr. D? I can walk you back to the Murphy’s.” Dakota squeezes his shoulder lightly, and Heinz does his best to remember how to breathe. Dakota’s hands are so _warm,_ and they’re so much bigger than the paws Heinz is used to having touch him with the same gentleness Dakota is offering. “Or y’can spend the night here. The couch—“ He gestures with his free hand, and Heinz follows his gaze to the sofa Dakota had just been spread out on. “—folds out into a bed. ‘s not very roomy, but it beats walkin’.”

Heinz is incredibly well-aware of every mistake he has ever made in his life. They dance around in his head _constantly,_ like little fairies or— no. Like little devils, laughing and taunting him and making sure he’s well aware of how much of a fuck-up he is. He knows he’s _stupid, wrong,_ an _imbecile. Poor planning_ doesn’t even begin to describe how much of an idiot he is.

Despite the angry little demons cackling around the fire in his mind, Heinz takes a deep breath and gets ready to create another one. “I think I’ll stay, if that’s alright with you.”

And Dakota’s brief smile, and the way his eyes alight with _something hopeful_ beneath his glasses, just for a second, are enough to assure Heinz that the mistake is going to be well-worth the eternal torture he’ll receive for it.

Who needs Perry the Platypus around, anyways? Not him.

(He doesn’t need Perry the Platypus. He can make mistakes just fine on his own.)

**Author's Note:**

> You know I had to do it to ‘em.
> 
> Kudos/comments are love! Come scream at me on tumblr @deathishauntedbyhumans.


End file.
